Blown Head Gasket Symptoms!
 

I have a 88 NA supra, i'm trying to figure out if my thermostat is out or is my head gasket blown? What usually happens or what symptoms there are when your head gasket is blown?

Read the second half of this post:
http://www.toyota-supra.info/forums/...00&postcount=6

Milky oil cap.
Milky dipstick.
Coolant loss.
Steam out of exhaust.

That's the stuff I saw yesterday after I drove my car for the 1st time in over a month, after replacing the head gasket. Yessssss. :D

Oh, and when you drain the oil, it should be nice and watered down too.

I guess you had a water jacket to oil channel leak.
Not all BHG's are like this, I think most are the cylinder to water jacket leak type.

With my BHG, the oil was perfect. It came to a point where the combustion gasses would just cause the car to spit out coolant even in idle, yet the oil and coolant never mixed or had a leak amongst each other.

My cars tail pipe looks like it's a steam engine. lol, I'm replacing my MHG with a composite one tomorrow.

I don't have any smoke out of the exhaust or milky oil, but i am losing coolant!! Could that still be thermostat or something else? My temp gauge never stays still it sits up top showing that its over heating but the car isn't over heating and is driveable and suddenly it jumps back down, if anybody knows answer me. Thanx!

yea i did that too Bullz_EyE - crimped the head gasket putting it on. $100 and 3 days for a new one. ordered it friday, weekend was agony

I have the problem with the temp gauge, but luckily no problems. While im driving it shoots back and forth. Its either cold or overheating or where it should be. Most of the time it says its really hot. But its still good and driveable. So its just a malfunction with the temp gauge. Not much of a nuisance so i dont worry about it. My gas gauge is like this too. I dont pay attention to the needle but when that little orange light comes on, its definitely time to get gas. Goodluck and hope its not the BHG.

Can anybody tell me how to test that to see if it really is the HG, is there an easy way to test it out?

From
http://www.toyota-supra.info/forums/...27&postcount=3

Also, the guy that put that Cygnus site up, has some awesome write ups!
http://www.cygnusx1.net/supra/techtips.html

And within that, there is a good write up on BHG's.
http://www.cygnusx1.net/supra/techtip/bhgfaq.html

Thanx for the help guys, i will find out tomorrow what the deal is. I have a whole day ahead of me. I will let yall know how it turned out.

Its a blown head gasket!!! So i get to tear it all apart, my first time doing it, if anyone has any pointers or any kind of advice i would appreciate it.

There are a lot of posts on this as this is a common problem. You MUST have the head milled and make sure the block surface is extra clean from past gasket material. Check for warpage and cracks on the block surface as well as the head. Overlooking this could cause another BHG. You will be replacing more than just the head gasket, i.e. the EGR gaskets. Buy a gasket kit. Keep track of the bolts, and take notice what connectors go where. Have patience. Good luck:)

Thanx for the help! The only thing i need to know is where to order some ARP studs and bolts, it might be a stupid question, but its better to ask than to be sorry!

I have the same promblem whith my 88 supra.I cant figure it out???

i just had same think...losing coolant,....the engine forcing coolant to the overwlow, and dump it out tru the drain house on the side of overflow...this is the gaket...maybe not broken, but definately bend around the rings on one ore more cilenders

make shure you mark the valve spacers were each one goes...they are diferent thiknes, and belongs to specific cilinder...i got my messtup once, and loose all the power

I think the most common early head gasket problem is from the combustion chamber to a water passage. Think of it this way, the combustion pressures are far greater and hotter than either the oil/water pressures/temps while the engine is running...remove the radiator cap while the car is running, and see if there are any bubbles in the coolant... if "yes" ,increase the rpm, and see if they get worse...if you don't have water in the oil, you can probably seal it with any of the "solutions" they sell for fixing this type of gasket failure before the combustion gasses erode the gasket to an oil passage.

Looking for confirmation: I'm fixing a non-turbo and don't plan to do any major performance modifications (if any) to it. Is a non-metal head gasket sufficient (Felpro)? Are bolts sufficient? I'm assuming it had bolts from the factory and they will be fine if torqued properly. I mean new bolts, not the originals.

Now that I think about it: One of the reasons I want bolts is so I don't have to take the engine out. Wouldn't I just be able to insert studs into the top with the head in place to prevent having to remove the engine?

I see tons of posts about metal head gaskets but none about plain replacement gaskets.

Plain gaskets work fine on an N/A engine. I put one on my daughters car along with ARP head studs and I think it will last a very long time. When you put the head back on after putting studs in, just leave the last 2 studs out like I did and you can tilt the head up from the front and get it to clear the firewall. Then just put the last two studs back in the torque it down.

You just want to make sur the studs go all the way into the block, which I noticed from my last car, that they didn't go all the way. They bottomed out but there were still a few threads left. You have to do it the one way because of the allen hole at one end of the studs. But it is working and my daughter ahs been driving it around for quite a while now.

Russ

Thanks.

From what I have read, I do bottom out the studs (but don't put too much torque on them). Is this right?

Also, I can only find head studs for the 7M-GTE. I know the engines are mostly the same but I don't know if there are head differences that would make these not work. Do the 7M-GTE head studs work in an NA?

temp problems
 

1. bad fan clutch
You are going to fry your puppy driving it this way

/\ that could also be a bad water pump and/or thermostat. Mine did that exact thing when the stat went bad.

ok well my car doesnt shoot anything out of the tube overflow end. it shot antifreeze out of the radiator car(when it was cold) and out of the tube end when it over heated. i replaced all coolants and everything. hasnt overheated since. still think its a bhg?

i didnt mean when it was cold..i meant wen it was closed antifreeze was shooting out.

hi guys! I have a 1991 turbo that had blown head gasket, symptoms,..coolant overflow all over my driveway every time I drove it! I would overheat,..at stops lights etc...and cool down once I drove off,.but the telltale sign is after you park it the coolant fills the reservoir and overflows all over the ground..had the head gasget replaced along with the head being cleaned up and no problems since...

hi when i got my first supra my head gasket had gone my symptoms was rusty water around reserve bottle all so no heating and then i noticed that coolant level dropped i took to toyota and did emissions test from radiator and discovered there was emission coming out of it and also if you oil in coolant or coolant in oil {milky} it has gone as well

Looks like you have air in the cooling system. MA's are very difficult to get the air out of the cooling system after you worked on them.

An air lock can cause overheating, while in fact the coolant gets out through the expansian container. (not sure that is the right word)

Might help to press the tubes intensely several times when the car is hot (keep heater system open) to press out locked air bubbles.

drive it on the freeway really quick then check your reservoir/radiator if it is overflowing if it is, chances are you have a blown head gasket. it overflows bcause the cylinder number 6 pushes the pressure back and you know how 7ms are, their head gaskets love to blow up.

ever check the water pump there is a indacating hole on the top side of the pump that leaks water if the seal has gone bad, also check around your intake manifold since it is also water cooled

u might want to make sure your temperature sending unit is still good or needs cleaned it located on the thermestat housing.

The needle going up and down can be a sign of a sticky thermostat, or improperly installed thermostat. The installation direction of the thermostat is often counter intuitive, it opens against the flow, but the housing does not prevent you from installing it backwards.

Gas Bubbles in your cooling system can also cause irractic temp needle behavior, this is usually bad, it does sound like you have an exhaust-to-coolant BHG, if you are losing coolant consistantly. And it will not show in your exaust, other than maybe being slightly more steamy.

The first few things I do to a newly aquired MKIII is a valve job with a new head gasket (I use metal laminated graphite, coated with teflon gaskets, usually from NAPA, and replace all the bolts with ARP, the teflon does a great job dealing with the aluminum head-to-cast iron block shearing that occurs with temp extremes, it actually reseals itself). Second thing to do, convert to all electric fans, it will keep your temp under control better, and give you a little snappier response on the throttle with out the fan drag.

I have driven both a MKII and MKIII from Oregon through the Nevada desert up Mt Rose (8000+ ft) to Lake Tahoe in July, and you will not make it up that grade without electric fans or stopping to cool off.

http://www.toyota-supra.info/forums/...64&postcount=1



All of these are very good signs too lol. Dam BHG!!!

Try to take out the old thermostat and punch out the insides of it and then replace it. Then you will know that it is not your thermostat.

Does your car use up any water? If so, and it probably does, then it could be your head gasket. I blew two head gaskets, on two different engines in the past year. You need to check your distributor!!! That is what caused both of my engines to blow. There are three different modules in the inside of the distributor that you need to check. You can test them in a few minutes, with a meter. I used my old distributor in the new engine I bought, which was a big mistake. I do not want you to make the same one. My car was smoking and burning oil. Also, when I checked the timing on my car, it was fine. But, when I advanced the engine, the timing went off the chart. This was do to two of the modules in the distributor going bad. A new distributor is only $256.00, from Toyota. Let me know if this helped you. David

Blown Head Gasket
 

My 87 Supra has a blown head gasket and ive heard about certain head gaskets that help with the tourque spec issue Toyota had back in the day. I would like to know what people would recomend for me to get for a head gasket.

I am currently in the process of determining weather or not i have the dreadded BHG. the guy that had the car before me said he put a metal head gasket on it, so i'm hoping that it's not that. I have some information though I'd like to share.

The heater core was replaced and the antifreeze that was put in was the orange kind from prestone. i have been putting that in it because it sounded like a good coolant. and the coolant was bubbling over. last night i went to buy some more at the auto parts store and the guy behind the counter almost took my hands off. WOAH he said don't put that in it. It'll gum up. it's specifically for GM vehicles!!!

i have already put two jugs of this in my car and now i'm gonna try to flush my cooling systtem with some anti gunk stuff and replace my thermostat as i suspect that it is gummed up and stuck. hopefully i can fix the problem


hope noone else has put this in their poor supra

The guy behind the parts counter was right. Dexcool is bad for any car that is not GM. They didn't even make Dexcool until 2000. So yes, go for the green stuff or get Toyotas red stuff. Definitely flush the system. Also, ask the previous owner if he got the block surfaced and lapped.

cool thanks for the advice i hate the orange stuff!!!

thermostat:replaced
coolant system:flushed

still no heat and still bubbling over

i guess its time to bite the bullet and get a head gasket

anyone have any suggestions...... i dont think i can have the block lapped
but i definately will have the head machined

Before you start breaking out the wrenches, why don't you run a block test and pressure test the cooling system? For a pressure test you only need to take the radiator cap off, and for a block test you need to take cap off and drain half the fluid in your radiator.

If you don't know what these things are just go to your local auto parts store and tell them you need a "block test kit" or a "Cooling system pressure tester".